Feeling totally overwhelmed by the market

[fluffycupcakes]

Will it ever cool down? It's not even financially any more although we've certainly lost money between selling our house and now renting waiting to buy.

Every buyer out there seems to snap up a property before we can breath. I'm not comfortable putting an offer on the second a property reaches the market and yet if I don't it appears we won't ever be able to move. Just so depressed about it all. Any indications the market might slow down?
Sorry for such a depressing post but have people really benefitted from the stamp duty relief? We seem to now have to mortgage up on the extreme price increases instead of making any savings.

@tanguero

Outonmyear Fri 07-May-21 20:59:4

Yes - it’s like the worst game of musical chairs at the moment - hundreds of players and about 5 chairs.

I REALLY want to list - am now rattling around, in a 4 bedroom Edwardian family house - sought after street - that needs a family again - but can't - because, although my no chain/cash off (for a one-bedroom flat) was accepted in JANUARY ! I'm still waiting for my seller to find somewhere and offer to 'complete'. On Monday, I'm going to give them until May 31st to complete, if not (seems likely) I'll stay put. Staying put will (for me) be better than going through the whole (stressful) process again. The market is in stasis.

I feel for you - I’m in the same situation as the person you are buying from - accepted an offer in January. Been gazumped in February and then..... nothing.

The offer we’ve accepted is now preventing us from competing in what little market there is as our budget won’t stretch but I don’t want to go back on my word. We are totally stuck. Don’t want to rent as worried about how fast the market is moving.

We expect to be given an ultimatum soon but we have nowhere to go. What an absolute mess. I feel so awful as everyone just wants to move.

Hope you haven’t lost much money if things don’t go through and things get moving soon.

Best of luck for tomorrow @fluffycupcakes!

We’ve had a rough day. Heard nothing from our estate agents all week, I’ve chased them two or three times a day.... today our seller found somewhere that they want to offer on, so our sellers estate agent called for details. Passed everything over, called our estate agent again... they just “hadn’t got round” to progressing the sale yet.... and then the new estate agent called this afternoon to say that our estate agent had told them that our buyer pulled out today. News to us!

I suspect the seller won’t wait, although officially we haven’t been told yet. I’m gutted. The house was perfect and I was imagining being settled there when I have this baby, and I’d mentally decorated...

I think we’ll have to sit it out now. I can’t see there being any more interest really, the other viewers we have have now bought other places so we’re back to square one in a slooowwww market for flats.

Good luck to you all!

@Outonmyear I know how you feel. It’s like there was this serendipitous window of about 3 weeks back in March when the stars all aligned and we had sold our house for a good price and could found a lovely family home to move on to, which we could afford, and then everything imploded.

I think we will set a date to bring an end to this one way or the other. If we cannot find anywhere suitable by then we will withdraw from our sale and put our plans on hold, who knows how long for. Prices are just getting sillier and new houses are going onto the market hardly at all. I want to prepare our buyers for that possibility. It’s just shit.

I'm starting to get a bit nervous about it all now. Between November and February/March, there seemed to be new properties listed in my price range (£600-650k) every other day.

Now that I've sold, everything coming on is either below £550k, and is therefore either a flat in a nice area, or a tiny house in an area I don't want to live in, or over £750k, which I can't stretch to as I'm buying on my own following a relationship breakdown.

I think I'm going to start writing letters to the owners of houses I'd like to buy next week, as getting a bit desperate now (I'm not in a chain as moving in with family, but would like to stay with them for as short a time as possible!).

Former EA says ex buyers fully booked looking for replacement home to buy but would offer a bit more money to me (not market price ..if I vacate).

I went to look around at rentals quickly (still not given answer to EA) - the situation in the rental is the same. Drove to first town and EA windows were barren. Drove to next little town looking for 'to LET' boards. I called one EA and she said they had 'one' place to rent come on and snapped up within 24 hours. Says they have never known anything like it. Also more people who have sold with no where to go grabbing places.

I love a good nose on Rightmove and I’ve noticed a real shift lately in both prices and what’s coming on.
We may need to move in a few years and if it was now I genuinely don’t know how we would do it, the next step is a massive jump with price and stock so low. Good luck everyone, it’s stressful enough at the best of times.

Oh goodness embarrassing update. just had a blazing row with dh, I think it's all the stress coming out, dh managed to book the house viewings 15 minutes between end of one and start of next but failed to figure that the distance between them is 30 mins. Soooo annoyed and also feel like I should have checked the times myself now .

Anyone considering renting in a crazy growing market please do not do this! Rents in my area are also going up. This is not a great place to be stuck in if like in our case the worst happens.

The stress in this messed up market is immense! I had a row with my DH over a potential house because I liked it and he wasn't sure 😬. Hope the viewings today go well @fluffycupcakes

@felicityelectricity exactly the same for us! We saw a house today which I think we should bid on, DH isn't keen. We had a proper argument over it. Thing is, I don't think he's being realistic about the compromises we might need to make in this stupid market.

A particular Estate Agency called to offer me their 'new' service. They get all your info and 'secretly' market your house. Meaning it's not on rightmove, not on zoopla etc... no for sale board. All covert because it's a little obvious that buyers are getting put off by looking at a house for one price this week, next week it's up £50 with another agent, following week up again with another agent. So now the new things is they match you up with potential buyers.

A second agent from another company called up today with details of a house just come on with them and talked me through it on the phone (no photos etc yet).

So now things are just getting sold behind closed doors.

Goodness excuse all the typos above.

Also someone at work has bought some raffle tickets £250k house. Tickets £2.50 per ticket. Apparently they have already raised over £500k in sales so after they pay the raffle company sounds like they will have got more than anticipated.

Same thing happened to me yesterday mumieone, EA rang offering to market my house without advertising it.
Thinking it over as house prices are v high here and up again due to the stamp duty break SW London.

Why do they want to market houses without advertising them?

And is that legal?

Wow EA clearly going all out. First house was nice enough but really I can't bring myself to pay the money for what truly is a very mediocre house and in a not so great area I reallly can't see it being worth as high a price in the next 5 years or s.

Second property had a lot of built in furniture creating a rather claustrophobic space everywhere. So random but they even had a rubbish old plasticy wardrobe fitted underneath the stairs and the agent had the cheek to tell us all storage is better than none. Ok so we can rip it out but at over our budget yet again I cba.

We spoke to the bank yesterday. If I go back to work then we can hit the next price bracket. I am beyond sad because I love my current life but I don't love renting so that's life isn't it, so it's looking like hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go!

Hope everyone else's property dreams are coming true.

It’s helped me today seeing the increasing number of media reports on what we are all experiencing. We aren’t imagining it!

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/property/anger-bidding-wars-spiralling-prices-20520474

This one is behind a paywall

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/house-prices-in-25-years-ive-never-seen-the-market-like-this-32znpnfxm

Shame about the houses @fluffycupcakes, you have to go with your gut when the estate agent is talking nonsense!

I'm the wrong person to ask. We've just bought a house 300 miles away from where we live. We've never been in the house, never even visited the road. We get the keys at the end of the month, wish us luck

@KindnessCrusader this actually sounds super exciting. Good luck!

@Outonmyear the Times is actually depressing me. Nearly everyday there is a a property article that makes me read halfway through before being too depressed to carry on I think at least it's genuinely the worst ever time to be in our situation.

I feel better thinking I can do something about it though and hopefully someone will employ me. Downside, bank wants me in a job for 4 months before they accept the salary. Here's praying the prices don't go up even more crazily!

Good luck @fluffycupcakes I’ve decided to up my income too and go for a new job - not only will it take my mind off things for a bit, I think the market will be a bit clearer in 4 months and we will be in a better position financially.

It truly is a rubbish situation.

Good luck @Outonmyear yep a distraction from this absurdity is the best idea right now I think.

Joining the misery! We sold our flat at the end of March after trying and failing twice last year. We found somewhere a couple of days later but the seller pulled out after four weeks. We then found somewhere else but despite offering the asking price and being in a great position the seller went with someone else. I'm finding EAs infuriatingly annoying! We don't want to lose our buyer and risk not being able to sell so we're resigning ourselves to moving to a rental property in the interim. It's grim.

Oh... and I'm 31 weeks pregnant just to add to the fun!

Hope you're all surviving. It's the Wild West out there at the moment!

I think I’m done and we might just pull our sale and wait for it all to calm down. We just had our offer on a lovely house rejected. It went to best and final, we offered £20k over asking and it was still wasn’t good enough. This is the 3rd time this has happened so far. Apparently the winning bid was considerably more. I feel like I’m losing my mind!